I don’t think I’ve ever felt so conflicted about going in to see a movie as I was with the Michael Jackson concert, This Is It. The movie itself doesn’t dwell on the singer’s death, infact other than one line of text at the end (“Love Lasts Forever”) the entire thing feels like a run-of-the-mill behind the scenes music concert documentary. Only, the audience knows why they’re there sitting in the cinema. They know why they’re experiencing this concert in a cinema and not on the stage with Jackson in the flesh. I was filled with a terrible forboding feeling from the start, an ominous sense lingering around me in the cinema seats. It was as if I walked in to see The Sixth Sense and already knew how it would end. However, quickly you are thrown into the process of the production – picking dancers, interacting with musicians and the musical director, costumes, dance moves, music performances. At times you tap your feet with the music, at other times you held your breath, there were even times that my entire body tingled.

Everything was so spectacular, it would’ve been a truly breathtaking thing to behold had it made it to match Jackson’s vision. As it was the behind the scenes footage added a real earthy gritiness, and we were given moments to see Jackson as the appreciative, softly spoken man as well as the dancing, singing superstar. However because of what we know as the audience viewing this some time after its creation, the feelings are bitter-sweet. Every other line out of Jackson’s mouth takes on new significance. He talks about environmental destruction and how we haven’t much time left, and we’re really left with no doubt that this (one way or another) is true. But then there are sweet funny moments and you are brought back into the warmness of this experience with a chuckle. Scenes featuring Jackson trying out his cherrypicker and his apparent fondness for the choreography of air stewards are truly delightful.

It would’ve been easy to exploit the grief of fans, it would’ve been easy to become overwhelmed by the sometimes depressing messages contained within the songs (especially with overlay sequences as powerful as that used in Earth Song for example). But here we are given a really wonderful balance. It is a warm and honest tribute to a man as beloved by his fans as the people he worked with.

Admittedly I come to this film as a Michael Jackson fan. I am aware that some people have said things like ‘the dancing was interesting’ and ‘I found it kind of boring.’ Such comments astound me. For anybody who has been alive at any stage during the last forty years, here is an opportunity to see the final work of one of our greatest performers and creative talents.

I watched the last song of what was Michael Jackson’s final concert. And then I started to cry. It’s just so sad. The day he died I was sad and the next day I was philosophical and really enjoying his backcatalogue, but I don’t know… Maybe it’s just the proximity to the funeral. I feel so gutted. (I keep thinking things like, “No, please, powers-that-be take Lady Gaga instead!”)

Lately I’ve been playing a lot of music through blip.fm and it’s made me really think about the songs I enjoyed when I was younger and the things I played on the radio. I wondered what happened to Diana King and eventually googled her and found her website and her myspace. She’s recorded her own Michael Jackson tribute, Mi-cha-el. I’ve been listening to it a lot today.

The second verse:

Well you’ve been with me since I was a child
So young and free with your perfect smile
Yeah you made me wanna be more than I was before
And even though they broke your heart
Baby God rest your soul
Such a tragedy I wish it was a dream
Thriller Billie Jean I couldn’t wait to see
But I’m like everybody else and I don’t understand
I’m asking why why oh why and this one’s for you baby…

You can download the song via her Reverb Nation page.

Oh my God can’t believe what I saw as I turned on the TV this evening…

Michael Jackson is dead. You probably already knew that. I never really thought of myself as being a big fan of his, I only own a single album and a couple of CD singles (mostly for the remixes). But the news filled me with such a profound sense of sadness. I heard someone suggest he was ‘our generation’s’ John Lennon. It is difficult of course; Lennon was gunned down, Jackson died of natural/medical causes as far as anyone knows pending the coroner’s report. But for me this is the first time I’ve really connected with a public figure who has died. I suddenly feel like I understand in some ways how people felt when Elvis died, or JFK, or Kurt Cobain or Jeff Buckley. I really admire the contributions of a lot of now deceased individuals but invariably I’ve discovered their works after they have died. This is new, this is strange. To me, at least.

And Twitter… oh, Twitter. Twitter, moreso than any other technology, embodies everything about humanity. It is us at our best and our worst, our most trivial, our most flippant, our most philosophical. Everything, really. So many people dismiss the service as a triviality but it doesn’t speak for itself, we speak via it. Just waking up and seeing the way these rumours of deaths (Farrah Fawcetts’, confirmed, and those of others besides Jackson that were all apaprently hoaxes) perpetuated the service was interesting. We know that we can’t blindly accept anything at face value, we need evidence. Half the world complains that journalistic interests don’t research their stories thoroughly enough, the other half complains that they take too long to report news, to be current. It is a balancing act, surely?

It seemed more and more certain that the rumours were true over time. And for me Twitter sort of embodies such a wide range of people that on any really topical issue you get the full spectrum of responses. A lot of flippancy and jokes about Jackson, people who were really passionate and distressed, people who weren’t really that interested at all.

I’ve been listening to Michael Jackson’s Blood On The Dance Floor album all day. I’ve really enjoyed it since the day I first heard it, but only actually bought a copy of it earlier this year. Some part of my psyche was searching for changed meanings in songs – perhaps Ghosts would take on a different significance for example. But, no, that song isn’t really about ghosts, it’s about jealousy. I am just impressed by the musicality of the songs, and also the raft of social issues present in the selections.

Jackson was 50. That Motown Records is also celebrating their 50th year this year is not lost on me. Indeed lately I’ve been enjoying their Motown 50 podcast, and just a few weeks ago I was listening to one episode featuring the Jackson Five, themselves just children, talking about their musical inspirations and which Jackson was interested in which girl at school. And then somebody mentions that actually for African-Americans 50 is a fairly typical life expectancy age, and this saddens me and angers me, and like the song goes it does make me wanna scream. And I think about Jackson in a larger context of African-American singers singing for equality. I think about Nina Simone and Billie Holliday, and how I had studied their plight briefly at university and how I understood it intellectually at that time but how I didn’t understand it emotionally until I connected with that music, that work. That is the function of art – to make us feel. [But then I stop and realise that the plight of Aboriginals in this country is at least as bad, and that their life expectancy is disgusting low. And the whole thing levels me feeling bewildered and sad.]

I guess that is why he is so dearly missed, because he did make us feel. He made us dance. He made us think. He made us sing. He mastered the art of the music video, staging elaborate theatrical masterpieces to accompany the musical ones. I don’t really think I can say anything that hasn’t been said already, but I did want to say something.